General: Title from caption. Possibly photographed by Suzuki Shinichi.Historical: Ernest Goodrich Stillman, the son of American financier and banker James Stillman, earned his BA from Harvard in 1908 and his MD from Columbia in 1913. He worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1915-1949. A generous benefactor of Harvard University, he had many interests, including photography and collecting Japanese art and literature. Probably the first Japanese photographer to study abroad, Suzuki Shinichi became interested in photography while a student of the English artist Charles Wirgman. He went on to become an apprentice to Japanese photographer Shimooka Renjo, and in 1876, he opened his first studio in Nagoya. His success peaked around 1896 but he eventually lost everything speculating in the shipping business. He is often confused with his father-in-law Suzuki Shinichi (1835-1919), who also apprenticed under Shimooka, because they both adopted the same name.Provenance: Gift of E.G. Stillman to Widener Library, 1948.

Related Work:

part of E.G. Stillman Japanese Collectionpart of Early Photography of Japan